skip to main content

Lodi Winegrape Commission

  • Home
  • Wineries
  • About
  • Visit
    • Visitor Center
  • Club
  • Events
  • Store
    • LODI RULES Sustainable Certification
    • White Wines
    • Rosé Wines
    • Red Wines
    • Sparkling/Dessert Wines
    • Old Vine Wines
    • Merchandise
  • Blog
TOP

Letters from Lodi

An insightful and objective look at viticulture and winemaking from the Lodi
Appellation and the growers and vintners behind these crafts. Told from the
perspective of multi-award winning wine journalist, Randy Caparoso.

Randy Caparoso
 
October 14, 2011 | Randy Caparoso

Harmony’s Pipe Dreams zin rolls in

IMG_3358

Harmony Wynelands' Shaun MacKay

When you take a tub of grapes and ferment it with the yeast that has grown naturally on their own skins, you are incorporating the vineyard’s indigenous microbiology.  If those grapes happen to be Zinfandel grown in Lodi, the resulting red wine will not necessarily compare to other wines made from Lodi grown Zinfandel – you may like others better.  Yet it is more likely to taste like the best possible wine made from that vineyard because you’ve allowed the grapes’ own yeast to play a part in the wine’s fermentation, and ultimately its flavor.

The family at Lodi’s Harmony Wynelands – owners Bob and Linda Hartzell, their winemaker/son Shaun MacKay and their consulting winemaker Chad Joseph – are proud to announce the release of one such wine:  the Harmony Wynelands Pipe Dreams Old Vine Zinfandel ($44).  They strongly feel this is the best Zinfandel they have ever made because it’s a blend of wines from the two best barrels selected  over three consecutive years – 2007, 2008 and 2009 (which is why Pipe Dreams a nonvintaged wine) – that were primarily wild yeast fermented and matured in French/American oak barrels for a very long time:  the ’07 portion for three years, the ’08 for two years, and the ’09 for one year.  A convergence, as it were, of old and young, the smooth and rambunctious, the suave and the surly.

IMG_3342

“The goal,” says Mr. MacKay, “was to say that this vineyard (the Harmony Wynelands estate’s oldest plantings, located on the east side of Lodi’s Mokelumne River AVA) may be a little wild, even farmed a little loosely… but this is the taste of this vineyard – a ripe black cherry with a little bit of bittersweet cocoa, and an almost butterscotchy richness and feel.”  In fact, MacKay adds, “recently I’ve been finding myself describing it as tasting like ‘grapes’ – which doesn’t tell you verymuch except that it tastes like our grapes.”

Our own tasting notes?  Pipe Dreams tastes like sweetly concentrated, dried cherry, veering on raisins, with cinnamon stick and cracked peppercorn spices.  Big, broad, hellbent and fleshy in the mouth – nothing subtle or gentile here – with the spiced dried fruit intensity layered like a canvas of black velvet.  If you like this type of full throttled Lodi Zinfandel, then we suggest you snatch up these beautifully engraved bottles while you can!

IMG_3374

Shriveled Zinfandel left on Harmony Wynelands vines

Why the name, Pipe Dreams?  Say MacKay, “it’s a tribute to our family, who came from a different background from the longer established families here in Lodi.  But we bought this vineyard because we had our own dream of a better life, growing grapes and making wine.  The name also fits because of the massive, majestic Robert Morton organ housed in the winery; a 1,500 pipe instrument that originally graced San Francisco’s Castro Theatre, purchased and installed by the music loving Bob Hartzell in 1987.

What MacKay didn’t mention during our last chat is that there is also a lot of himself in Pipe Dreams:  particularly the years he once spent in the Hawaiian Islands – with its famous surf rolling and hissing onto shores of soft, glistening  sand like liquid blue foaming pipes – seeking a spiritual balance and harmony in his own life, before coming back home to discover it in the vineyard that the Hartzells had named, fortuitously, Harmony.  The farther you go, the sooner you come back around.

They say surfing is religion.  If that’s the case, making wine from your own grapes, in the spores and dust that you live and breathe everyday, may very well be a nirvana it itself.

IMG_3359

Tweet
Pin It

Comments

Commenting has been turned off.
Blog Search
Recent Posts
  • January 13, 2021
    Alternative style Lodi wines reflecting the wave of the future — part 2, new interpretations of heritage grapes
  • January 11, 2021
    Alternative style Lodi wines reflecting the wave of the future — part 1, an unfamiliar white and red
  • January 5, 2021
    Discerning wines of the immediate future through what we know about the past and what's going in Lodi
  • December 29, 2020
    Lodi 2020: The year in pictures
  • December 27, 2020
    The small steps of Lodi growers led to giant leaps for Lodi wine country
  • December 22, 2020
    Looking on the bright side of fading old vine plantings in Lodi
  • December 17, 2020
    Our list of nice Lodi reds, rosés and fortified dessert wines for Christmas gifting and sipping
  • December 15, 2020
    A Lodi white makes the world's Top 100 list, and other Lodi whites for Christmas shopping and sipping
  • December 9, 2020
    The 1980s and 1990s — start of Lodi wine country's modern era
  • December 3, 2020
    The original Lodi Natives — the Plains Miwok
Our Writers
  • Randy Caparoso (803)
Blog Archives
2021
  • January 2021 (3)
2020
  • December 2020 (7)
  • November 2020 (7)
  • October 2020 (6)
  • September 2020 (7)
  • August 2020 (7)
  • July 2020 (7)
  • June 2020 (8)
  • May 2020 (8)
  • April 2020 (8)
  • March 2020 (8)
  • February 2020 (6)
  • January 2020 (6)
2019
  • December 2019 (7)
  • November 2019 (6)
  • October 2019 (6)
  • September 2019 (5)
  • August 2019 (5)
  • July 2019 (7)
  • June 2019 (6)
  • May 2019 (6)
  • April 2019 (6)
  • March 2019 (6)
  • February 2019 (5)
  • January 2019 (7)
2018
  • December 2018 (7)
  • November 2018 (7)
  • October 2018 (9)
  • September 2018 (6)
  • August 2018 (7)
  • July 2018 (8)
  • June 2018 (7)
  • May 2018 (9)
  • April 2018 (8)
  • March 2018 (9)
  • February 2018 (8)
  • January 2018 (8)
2017
  • December 2017 (6)
  • November 2017 (8)
  • October 2017 (10)
  • September 2017 (5)
  • August 2017 (6)
  • July 2017 (7)
  • June 2017 (6)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (7)
  • March 2017 (6)
  • February 2017 (5)
  • January 2017 (7)
2016
  • December 2016 (7)
  • November 2016 (8)
  • October 2016 (7)
  • September 2016 (7)
  • August 2016 (5)
  • July 2016 (7)
  • June 2016 (7)
  • May 2016 (6)
  • April 2016 (6)
  • March 2016 (7)
  • February 2016 (6)
  • January 2016 (5)
2015
  • December 2015 (8)
  • November 2015 (6)
  • October 2015 (7)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (6)
  • July 2015 (7)
  • June 2015 (6)
  • May 2015 (5)
  • April 2015 (6)
  • March 2015 (6)
  • February 2015 (7)
  • January 2015 (5)
2014
  • December 2014 (8)
  • November 2014 (5)
  • October 2014 (7)
  • September 2014 (5)
  • August 2014 (3)
  • July 2014 (5)
  • June 2014 (6)
  • May 2014 (7)
  • April 2014 (7)
  • March 2014 (5)
  • February 2014 (4)
  • January 2014 (7)
2013
  • December 2013 (8)
  • November 2013 (6)
  • October 2013 (7)
  • September 2013 (5)
  • August 2013 (6)
  • July 2013 (4)
  • June 2013 (4)
  • May 2013 (4)
  • April 2013 (5)
  • March 2013 (2)
  • February 2013 (2)
  • January 2013 (4)
2012
  • December 2012 (7)
  • November 2012 (9)
  • October 2012 (9)
  • September 2012 (7)
  • August 2012 (9)
  • July 2012 (8)
  • June 2012 (8)
  • May 2012 (9)
  • April 2012 (8)
  • March 2012 (9)
  • February 2012 (7)
  • January 2012 (9)
2011
  • December 2011 (7)
  • November 2011 (8)
  • October 2011 (7)
  • September 2011 (7)
  • August 2011 (8)
  • July 2011 (8)
  • June 2011 (9)
  • May 2011 (7)
  • April 2011 (9)
  • March 2011 (8)
  • February 2011 (8)
  • January 2011 (7)
2010
  • December 2010 (8)
  • November 2010 (6)
  • October 2010 (2)
  • September 2010 (6)
  • August 2010 (5)
Additional Resources
  • Media & Trade
  • Lodi Winegrape Commission
  • Donation Requests
  • Returns & Cancellations
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
Contact

Lodi Wine Visitor Center
2545 West Turner Road Lodi, CA 95242
209.365.0621
Open: Thursday - Sunday 12:00pm-5:00pm

Lodi Winegrape Commission
2545 West Turner Road, Lodi, CA 95242
209.367.4727
Open: Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:00pm

Have a question? Complete our contact form.

  • © Copyright 2021 Lodi Winegrape Commission
  • Winery Ecommerce by WineDirect